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I'll admit my potential bias up front - I practice Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, albeit not in Maui (unfortunately). I gave this book an average rating because I think that for non-Ki Society aikidoka, this book has very little to offer. For Ki Society people, it is an excellent dojo reference manual, containing policies and procedures that, while specific to the Maui Ki Society, are quite common to Ki Society dojo outside of Hawaii. The manual, written by Chris Curtis sensei, the current regional chief instructor for Ki Society in Hawaii, is well written, and clearly reflects the influences of his instructor, Shinichi Suzuki, a direct student of Koichi Tohei sensei, the founder of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido.

As the focus of the manual is on policies and procedures, rather than techniques, it has little or no information about aikido, Ki Society style or otherwise. Conveniently, it has a list of Taigi techniques, but I was mildly disappointed that Taigi competition scoring criteria were excluded from the manual. The criteria are very difficult to get a hold of, and their inclusion would have increased the book's value in my opinion. I did like the discussion of misogi practices in Ki Society (bell and river), and the manual also includes good reference material on Ki Barai and Ki Breathing, and even a small section on acting as the traveling assistant to a Shihan level instructor.

My greatest disappointment with this manual lies in the discussion of various types of aikido practice. Although I believe the intent of this section of the manual is to convey Curtis and Suzuki sensei's ideas about stages of development in aikido, the reader may also choose to interpret the passages as inflammatory slights on other (non-Ki Society) styles of aikido (i.e., that they do not have ki in their aikido). I do not believe that this was Curtis sensei's intent, so I will not provide the direct quotations, but I sincerely wish that future revisions of the manual be clearer on this point. In my mind, too many Ki Society members already have uninformed opinions and incorrect stereotypes about other aikido organizations.

That said, I highly recommend this manual to any member of Ki Society. If you're not in Ki Society but are curious about the book, borrow it from a Ki Society friend first and see if there's anything of value there for you before investing the money.